So, what if whenever we survey a business to add to OSM, we also leave a flyer informing the owners? Some business owners would be interested in maintaining their business details on OSM.
(I mostly survey in Perth, Western Australia.)
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Do you have a draft text of your flyer? To me, it would take careful wordsmithing so readers distinguish OSM from more familiar business listings on Google Maps or Yelp:
- OSM focuses on verifiable features. Language like “100% customer satisfaction guaranteed” or “committed to quality” isn’t suitable for
description=, though some business owners may use similar language on Google Maps or Yelp. - A business owner can’t “claim” or “own” their business’s entry in OSM and get some privileges over editing their business. Other users can add verifiable tags that the business owner might not like, like
wheelchair=no. - OSM doesn’t provide offer one-on-one introductions to OSM software, like Yelp does.
- Edits may not immediately appear on the slippy map at osm.org due to browser cache.
opening_hours= would benefit from business owners’ edits, but how you would best explain the syntax in a way that wouldn’t overwhelm readers considering themselves “not technical”? All I can think of is telling someone to edit with the Every Door app.
If you release your flyer under a Creative Commons license, other people will be able to freely copy your flyer and distribute it themselves.
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Have you seen Flyers and posters - OpenStreetMap Wiki ?
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https://osmybiz.osm.ch/ (could probably need some love like updating the presets), but does the basic it stuff you would want from an app that is suitable for people that don’t want to be involved with OSM itself.
The site opens, but I can not login, and it doesn’t load businesses. Probably a minor issue, but it doesn’t help. !
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Yeah there’s some glitch (I was already logged in so it was working for me), will likely be fixed on Monday. But that wasn’t the point, which was there are solutions for small businesses that do not involve “editing”.
PS: it uses overpass to fetch POIs and given the current issues with overpass the zoom level at which it starts fetching data probably needs to be increased, zooming in should fix that for now.
I think this might be something of a bad idea. Low-quality conflict-of-interest editing by businesses is already a thing, and this is practically an invitation for them to take ownership over and change OSM data related to them.
It might very well lead to a bunch of petty local edit wars about businesses ignoring good practices to promote themselves.
A draft of possible flyer text:
Your business is being listed or updated today on OpenStreetMap, the free community-created wiki world map. To view your business, find out more, or add details to your business, you can go to [insert webpage] or scan the QR-code.
Please note that anyone, including you, can edit your business on OpenStreetMap, and changes must be objective and verifiable by others, but you can link to promotional material such as on your website.
[Further details, possibly all on webpage:]
- What is OpenStreetMap.
- How to sign up.
- How to edit with instructions for some easy-to-use editors.
- When to expect to see changes on the map and third-party apps.
- Suggested fields to edit.
- What to do if disagree with someone else’s edit.
This looks potentially good, I will try if log-in is fixed to see how easy editing open_hours is. On my mobile it did glitch: when selecting a business node it would jump and the pop-up would disappear.
Can you send examples of such problem edits? If I distribute such flyers, I would be interested to track what happens where I do.